


cause i'm a cannonball to a house on fire

by voodoochild



Series: The Edges In-Between [3]
Category: Ring of Honor, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: (don't be like Sami here), (kids this is NOT what you do with possible concussions), Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Bilingual Character(s), Canon-Typical Violence, Concussions, F/M, Hiding Medical Issues, Indy Wrestling, Long-Term Relationship(s), Male-Female Friendship, Other, Secret Relationship, Sexism, Unplanned Pregnancy, industry-wide sexism ahoy, it's not even "turn right" it's bizarro world, seriously there are so many changes to "canon"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-13 17:52:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18036083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: She's not marrying him, she's never marrying him, she's making her own name. [aka, the one where we turned right. aka, the one where Kevin was always a girl.]





	cause i'm a cannonball to a house on fire

**Author's Note:**

> The second of the three universes. Title from the Gaslight Anthem's "The Spirit of Jazz". Much, much love to Chloe, Em3, and Mith for the emotional support, cheerleading, and appreciation of girl!Kev, as well as help with two of the major plot points. Further love to Sansese for the French help and T for the Quebecois.

The running joke, for all the years she and Sami have known each other, is “so when’s the wedding?”.

_The second of fucking never._

_Right after Vince McMahon makes me WWE champion._

_I dunno, whenever the Pope decides I can marry a Muslim and still remain Catholic._

Her parents have pretty much given her up as a lost cause. She’s the rebellious one, started wrestling at 16, running all over North America to work for anyone who’ll have her. Living in sin with a Muslim boy, which is what her parents call it no matter how much they adore Sami. Her brother’s the nice one, married to Brigitte-from-two-streets-over, respectable job and home, 2.5 kids (the dog counts). No one's actually said “when are you going to give up and get a real job?”, but it’s there in every purse of her mother’s lips and every narrowing of her father’s eyes.

Even Kirsten has to admit that being dubbed “the hellbitch of professional wrestling” isn’t that impressive when she’s still eating soup four days a week and their flat hasn’t actually had power for six months (eh, the neighbors have let them run an extension cord when they’re home, and that’s not often). She takes what bookings she can get - both on her own merit and whatever Sami’s wheedled the booker into giving her - and if she’s not wrestling, she picks up hours washing dishes at the cafe on the corner.

She’s done worse. She would do worse.

She doesn’t talk about last year, Sami in Japan where he ran to get away from her, her in CZW for a single match before she quit the business entirely. She’s a wrestler, not a rat, and playing fucktoy for a wrestler that couldn’t lace her fucking boots was too much. She punched out the promoter, spit on the guy trying to grope her, and drove back to Marieville.

Seven months working at a convenience store, stocking shelves and counting change, trying not to jump in her car every Friday afternoon for a show. Letting her hair grow and eating all the pizza she wanted. Her boots gathering dust in her closet at home, and if her parents were cautiously pleased, Kirsten couldn’t have been more miserable.

She promised her mother she'd start thinking about college in November.

Sami came back in December.

He was still too-loud, too-skinny, annoying as all fuck, and she’d never loved him more. Waiting outside the store, leaning against her car in a hoodie and jeans like he was hipster Brando, her gear bag slung over his shoulder like he knew she’d say yes.

“IWS called. Why the hell haven’t you been working?”

“I’ve been _working_ , asshole. You should try it sometime.”

“You mean you haven’t seen the clips out of Dragon Gate? Me and Pac?”

“Pac’s too good for you.”

“You’re too good for all of us, _habibti_. What the fuck are you doing slinging coffee and cigarettes at a _depanneur_?”

She hadn’t had an answer, beyond _because you left_ and _I missed your stupid face_ and _I never feel like I’m worth anything unless I’m in a ring with you_. She’s sure as hell not going to tell him any of that, though.

“Get in. If we get to the bar by 5, we’ll have just enough time to shake the ring rust off you. I’ll have them change our match to a street fight if it looks dire, but you’re you, so unless you want to break out the hardware, let’s talk false finishes-”

He’s babbling, spinning match idea after match idea, his beautiful genius brain, and she wants to tell him she watched every single moonsault. Every space tigersault. Every exploder suplex. She watched a bootleg copy of his DDT match on the grainiest internet connection possible, and her heart still stopped whenever the camera was on him.

He brakes for a red light, and she leans over to kiss him, a little longer and sweeter than she really meant to. They kiss, sometimes, but not like this. Not this intense, and he looks dazed when she pulls away.

“Thank you,” she says, already reaching into her bag for a pair of scissors to chop up her Guns&Roses tee.

He presses the gas, steers them toward the ramp to the highway. “Wouldn’t thank me yet. I’m gonna drag you by the hair all over that bar tonight.”

“It’s so cute how you think this isn’t gonna end with your head between my legs.”

“Kirsten Yvette Steen,” he starts, scandalized and trying to hide it, but she laughs and starts shrugging out of her shirt to change. 

“Because of the _powerbomb_. Eyes on the road, Zayn."

__***_ _

She starts sleeping with him a few months after they get into Ring of Honor.

She doesn’t precisely mean to, but she never plans for anything with Sami; things just happen. He just kisses her up against their car one night, she just loses her virginity to him in a tiny motel room outside of Cleveland (and she didn’t *tell him* that was what was going on, but he knew because he’s Sami), they just keep wrecking each other in the best way and obsessively hiding it from the rest of the roster. They’re not exactly boyfriend and girlfriend, but they’re not just fuckbuddies, and all she really wants to label him as is “mine”.

(He likes that she’s possessive, likes being pushed around by her, and it’s such an awesome power trip. She learns a lot about very interesting sex.)

It’s about a year and a half later. Things are actually going decently right now, she and Generico have worked a couple months’ worth of intergender matches against Claudio and Sara, or Jimmy and Lacey, or Davey and Lu. They’ve got enough money to pay both rent and the electric bill this month, so there’s light and the fridge works. She’s just turned 25 and she can tell that she’s ready for new moves, adapting her style, working better shows. Cornette’s even started considering some of her ideas for new storylines.

This is, of course, when she throws up breakfast for the fourth morning in a row and her sister in law locks her in the bathroom with a stick to pee on.

“Kirsti-” God, she hates that nickname, but Brigitte is kind of the only sane adult she has right now. “C’mon, it’s time to look at the thing. You can’t ignore it, _ma belle-soeur_.”

“Yes, I fucking can,” she says, eyes fixed on the blue plus sign. “Oh, _osti de tabarnak de crissment de marde_ …”

Brigitte sighs. “That answers that question. Kirsti, I’m calling _maman_ -”

“You are not!”

“Then I’m calling Eric-”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, he’s worse! Do you not remember the fit he threw when you found out you were pregnant with Cecile?”

“You can’t stay in the bathroom forever.”

Kirsten sets the stick on the countertop, pulls up her jeans, and flushes. Opens the door to find Brigitte with Kirsten’s cell phone in her hand. “I’m not, because I have a show to make tonight in Ottawa. Cough it up, traitor.”

“Like hell you’re wrestling.”

Sami is standing in the doorway, and he shouldn’t be anywhere near home because she’d deliberately picked now, when he’s supposed to be visiting his parents, to deal with this. Kirsten tries to slam the bathroom door, but Brigitte’s faster, wedging her foot between the door and the wall.

“Fucking here we go, it’s gonna start now, isn’t it?” Kirsten asks, trying to kick Brigitte’s foot away. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Sami-”

He’s across the room, gently moving Brigitte out of the way and shouldering the door open. “Yeah, I really do, I’m half-responsible-”

“This is a fucking accident, you idiot-”

“No no no, _je m’en fous_ , you do not get to do this, Kir. You do not get to let me find out we’re having a baby from your fucking sister-in-law - sorry, Brigitte, thank you for the call, I’ll make sure she actually tells her parents like a normal person, _a plus_.”

Kirsten isn’t sure how she ended up sitting on the tile floor, her back to the wall and feet touching the tub. She’s never passed out in her life, not even after the time she got busted open on a guard rail, but she feels dizzy and she’s sweating right through her tee shirt even though it’s chilly in the flat. She blinks up at Sami, who looks just about as terrified and furious as she feels, and he drops next to her, pulling her onto his lap.

“I’m not marrying you,” she says, decisively, even as he’s tucking her hair behind her ears and kissing her temple.

“I know.”

“And I’m not giving up wrestling.”

He sighs. “Nothing short of full paralysis could make you. Just - promise me, okay? I will figure shit out with ROH, we’ll write you out and we’ll find something else, but promise me you won’t do anything remotely resembling wrestling while you’re pregnant.”

He can’t promise that everything will work out. Cornette dislikes her on a good day, she can only imagine what the baby news is going to do for that. But she trusts Sami, because she’s never been able to do anything else.

“You’re buying me all the ice cream in the _world_ ,” she says, laying her head on his chest.

“I’m more than okay with that. I’m okay with everything. I just want you to be safe and let me help you deal with this.”

She’s never been more terrified. But for this one single moment, she thinks they’ll be okay, and during every bout of morning sickness, every throb of her swollen ankles, every inch her belly rounds, she keeps telling herself this.

It’s worth it, their son is worth it.

***

She spends her pregnancy in the Ring of Honor locker room, but not as a wrestler. She spends it with the booking team, turning Tyler Black from Jimmy Jacobs’ sidekick into the sickest, most vicious monster in the company. The Devil in trunks and boots, out to destroy El Generico, for “stealing” Kirsten Steen from him and for being too damned good to stop him from taking revenge. Her character is offstage, but not reduced to a prop. She refuses to let them use her like that.

Sami feels guilty, because he’s making his name on this. He’s a fucking star - he always has been, but now everyone’s seeing it - and he’s shining brighter than her, he’s doing everything alone that they were supposed to do together. And yes, she’s angry, but half of that is the baby hormones, and if she has to take it out on him in bed, well, neither of them actually have a problem with that.

She can’t be too angry at him, he’s the sweetest fucking thing in the world. He treats her like a princess, once crawled out of bed at 3 am the night after a tables match to buy her pizza bagels and mint chocolate chip ice cream. He fell asleep every night with his hand on her belly, warm and comforting. When Danny was born, he tripped over the door on the way into the hospital and had to have two stitches, but he cried his eyes out holding their son for the first time.

Almost a year later, everyone still keeps asking when the wedding is. The boys. The bookers. Their families. She gives the same answer she always does, which is that they’re never getting married.

And she’s fine with that - Kirsten was never one of those girls who dreamed of their wedding day, playing chatterbox and writing her crush’s name on one of the blank spaces, watching Say Yes to the Dress. They don’t have *time*, there’s Final Battle to book, there’s Danny to keep an eye on, there’s formula and diapers and clothes to buy (babies are expensive), and she feels like her entire pregnancy and the first six months have just flown by.

She watches Final Battle from gorilla, and it’s so perfectly hideously awful, she can’t even hide her reactions. She knows every bit of this match, wrote it herself, but seeing Sami bleed, watching the chain shots, the tables that didn’t break fast enough - she feels like she could scream or vomit or shake to pieces.

“Kiki, babe, what are you doing watching this?”

Jimmy squirms his way past Claudio and Davey in a shock of dyed-red hair and cherry blossom perfume. She's not sure when he became a surrogate child and/or brother, but he is - she lets him call her “Kiki”, for fuck’s sweet sake.

“Where the hell else would I be?” she says, watching Tyler wrap a chain around his fist and punch Sami right in the face. She can't quite hold back a whimper, hiding her face in Danny asleep on her chest. “Gotta see my handiwork.”

Normally, she wouldn't let any of the boys see her emotional, because she loses all credibility when she's “Generico's girl”, but Sami and Tyler are just too good. They're taking everyone in the building on this ride, main-eventing with no title.

Jimmy looks like he wants to protest, take her back to the locker room and distract her. He doesn’t, pulls up a chair instead and sits down next to her. She almost yanks her hand away when he takes it, but then Sami takes the bump through the stacked tables, and he looks like a cast-off doll, limbs everywhere. Bleeding from under the mask and a little bit from his lip, his chest barely rising and falling even though they’re 27 minutes into the match.

“Ty wouldn’t let him get hurt,” Jimmy says quietly.

“They’re both fucking idiots,” she responds, watching as Tyler starts targeting the mask again. He’s talking incessantly, laughing that stupid little laugh of his as he takes in Sami trying to get up. “I wrote one goddamn table. One! Those assholes put another one up because god forbid they listen to me.”

“It looked killer.” She hisses through her teeth - can’t yell because Danny’s sleeping - and Jimmy shrugs. “Babe, it was. Sorry. It told a hell of a story and Sami can take it.”

On the monitor, Sami’s dragging himself back into the ring to break the ref’s count. He’s playing it up, of course, but she knows his body too well to miss the falter in his left knee, the way his shoulders are hunched to protect a rib or collarbone injury. She can spot the way he’s a half-second off the Irish whip, the way he has to use the ropes to pull himself up after a corner splash. Tyler is one of her best friends in the world, but she thinks she might seriously punch him repeatedly in the face if she saw him right now.

“He can’t, though.”

“Fuck that, he’s too good, he’s gonna-”

She cuts Jimmy off, taking her eyes off the screen for a second. “ _We_ can’t. Cornette doesn’t want us. Either of us. Yeah, Generico wins, but Generico leaves because there is no honor left for him here. That's how he'll spin it. And Corny threw me this storyline because he didn’t want the bad press for firing a pregnant girl, but he’s never letting me wrestle, he’s never gonna give me the book, so . . . we’re done fucking taking it, Jimmy.”

Jimmy looks like she’s gutted him, and she sighs, lets him duck under her arm and curl up with her. Danny fusses, but soon settles, once he figures out it’s just Uncle Jimmy.

“You’re leaving me, Kiki? You’re taking our boys with you?”

“I’m not leaving you, nerd. We’re gonna work Chicago, the New York towns, anywhere we can drive to. For the next four months, at least. We, uh . . . Sami got a call. From Stamford. Gotta be ready by May.”

“Holy fucking hell,” Jimmy breathes, eyes wide. “He’s gonna be in WWE?”

She shakes her head. “Tryout first. Some place they’re building down in Florida. If he gets it, we’re going to move.”

“He’ll get it.”

“What’d I fucking say? Tryout is all that’s guaranteed, and you know what Vince likes. You know he’ll think Sami’s too small, too weird, does too much flippy shit. I just - I don’t want anyone to know, in case…”

“I won’t say anything.” Jimmy sits up, knocks shoulders gently with her. “Two minutes until the finish. You, uh, wanna be at the curtain for him?” She gestures down at her sleeping son, and Jimmy makes gimme motions. “I got the rugrat. For, uh - for a while. Me and your parents worked it out last week. Chris and I’ll drive Danny to Lake Placid tonight, your mom and dad are meeting us there. They’ll have him until you and Sami get home.”

Her chest feels like it’s going to burst, happiness and gratitude, and she hands Danny to Jimmy before kissing Jimmy on the forehead. “I love you, kid. Thank you so much.”

She feels . . . really unlike herself as she walks out toward the curtain. Imagines, only for a few moments, what would happen if she went out in front of the crowd. If she told Nate to hit her music. She’s not dressed for it - she’s in a Ramones tee-shirt that used to be Sami’s and maternity jeans because the weight just will not come off her midsection - but she imagines it. How she’d play it, the Madonna figure gracing the carnage of the match, her offstage boyfriend and her storyline rival. The crowd in her imagination has missed her, cheers for her, as she kayfabe orders Tyler out of the company and then tells everyone she and Generico are leaving too.

It’s not the right time, though, and so she stays behind the curtain, separated from the spotlight and the crowds by black tarp and duct tape.

***

That night, they stop at the Holiday Inn near Poughkeepsie, Kirsten driving, Sami laid out in the backseat because sitting upright still makes him a little dizzy. She cuts the engine, turns to look at Sami for the first time since they got in the car - she hadn’t wanted to yell at him while he was still bleeding and out-of-it - but he holds up a hand before she can speak.

“Can I have a shower and a hotel room before you freak out at me?”

She flexes her hands on the steering wheel, breathes in and out slow. “Yeah. Okay. I’m sorry, I thought you’d showered at the arena.”

“Just a water bottle to get the worst off. I . . . if I tell you something, seriously, don’t get mad.”

“ _Cheri_ , I’m not going to scream tonight. Just spit it out.”

“I didn’t see the doctor. I know, _I know_ , it’s stupid because I just bled all over the Ballroom and went through a table, but I hate Dr. Fincher and I hate Cornette’s stupid fucking face, and if there’s a record of me having a concussion within eight months of a WWE tryout, they’re not even gonna look at me-”

Kirsten can feel her hands shaking on the wheel and the blood pounding in her ears. She doesn’t know what to do or say, because she knows she’d do the exact same thing. It’s stupid and risky, but the WWE tryout is a once in a lifetime thing, they’re never going to hire anyone with a record of concussion. Look at Bryan.

“Let me - let me check you, okay? When we get up to the room. I’m not going to say anything, but I need to know you’re okay, and I swear to god, Sami, if I see anything besides the bladejob from the match, we’re going straight to the ER.”

He nods, carefully, and after ten minutes of waiting for another guest to finish arguing with the girl at the check-in desk, they’re up in a nice corner suite with a Hudson view (thank you mom and dad). She parks her wheeled bag by the side of the bed and sits, flipping on the light. Sami’s face is even worse in direct light; livid red cut from the bladejob above his right eye, a yellowing bruise on his left cheek, and a puffy lower lip from one of Tyler’s superkicks gone a little awry.

“Sit,” she orders, and Sami drops his bag and comes to sit next to her. She tilts his head back, touches fingertips to the bruise, and snaps her fingers to check his reflexes. “No concussion so far, but no glamour shots for WWE until your face looks less like it went ten rounds with Tyson.”

“Kir…” Sami curls an arm around her waist, ducks his head to kiss at her hairline. “I’m sorry. I should have-”

“I know why you didn’t, babe. May. Orlando. And no mask or gimmick to hide behind.”

Gingerly, he pulls her closer. They both kick their shoes off, but Sami tugs at her shirt. “Help me out here, huh? I just - I need to feel you. We haven’t been able to just be together and talk and lie in bed since we had Danny.”

It’s slow-going. Working her tee-shirt over her head, navigating the stretchy maternity jeans, but Sami helps, and they get her bra and panties off. It’s slower for his clothes, muscles protesting after the match, stiff with overuse. His arms won’t even go all the way over his head, but they get his shirt and jeans, his boxers, his socks, all dropped by the side of the bed. Kirsten feels ungainly - they’ve been too exhausted to so much as look at each other for the past eight months, except for a few scattered makeouts and attempts at sex - but Sami has the softest look in his eyes as he lies back down next to her.

“Hey beautiful,” he says, tucking an overlong strand of hair behind her ear. “Been a while.”

“Don’t you ‘hey beautiful’ me.” She sighs, burrowing into his chest, tucking her nose against his neck. She inhales slow. “You scared the hell out of me, Sami, that table bump and those chain shots.”

“You wrote it.”

“I wrote _some_ of it. Not that table spot. Two chain shots, not six. You and Tyler called those.”

He strokes her skin, down her throat and arms, laces his fingers with hers. “My last Ring of Honor match. I wanted it to be unforgettable, and you gave us so much of it. Just needed a little more.”

“It’s the last hardcore match, _tu captes_?”

“Not if I don’t get into WWE.”

She pushes back, pins his hands at his sides. “The last one, _mon soleil_. You can’t keep doing this, throwing yourself through tables and blading and taking hits. You have - _we_ have Danny. We have WWE waiting. No more blood, no more hardcore stuff, we do this on our own. Promise me.”

“I promise,” he breathes, and she lets him tug her down, kiss her sweet and needy. She nestles into his arms, all the strength of his lean body beneath her, and as always, they’re in complete synch. Lazy, but intent kissing, slow deliberate shift against each other. “Will you promise me something too, Kir?”

“Depends,” she drawls, and he laughs quietly before running a hand down her back, cupping her ass and pressing her into his chest.

“Promise me you won’t give up on wrestling just because I might sign with WWE. You keep talking about getting back into ring shape - you could do it. You could get a tryout.”

She has to laugh. “Oh my god, what the hell would I do in WWE, throw the Bellas around for a couple months until someone had the misfortune to try an actual wrestling move? Get fined for piledriving Candy Marie or whatever her name is? I’m sure as hell not wearing a bikini or doing the Diva Search.”

“You could wrestle Beth or Nattie, you could be so fucking revolutionary and I could get them to hire you-”

“Baby,” she says, putting a hand over his mouth, “I don’t want that. I don’t. I never coasted off your name and I won’t now. If - if I come back, it’s gonna be to the indies. It’s gonna be as Kirsten Steen, and it’s not gonna be for anybody but me. Okay?”

He nods slowly, kissing her palm. “Okay.”

She can tell that he wants to argue, wants to have the same argument they’ve been having for years - that she should be in WWE, that they can change the business and make it better, that he wants to marry her. And maybe she will marry him one day, but it’s not today, it’s not yet, there’s nothing that marriage gives her that she doesn’t already have with him.

“So, you want to get off like a couple of teenagers?” she asks, “Or do you want to enjoy the only sleep we’re likely to get for the next 4 years?”

“Considering I wrestled for 32 minutes tonight, I vote sleep. With a raincheck on the getting-off.”

Sleep gets her vote too, though they do wake up at some godawful hour to trade messy handjobs (in the shower) and fingerfucking (back in bed). She comes louder than she’s been able to for months, and Sami falls back asleep with his head on her tits and a smug smile on his face. She lies awake for a few hours, listening to him breathe and stroking her fingertips over every bit of skin she can reach. Keeping track of every scrape, every bruise, every cut, every mark that she hasn't put on him.

***

He makes it to WWE. She doesn’t.

It’s what they both want - he gets the spotlight, gets more than enough money, gets to be counted among the best in the world, and she gets to be the indy darling she always should have been and spend the rest of the time with Danny. Their son is every bit as stubborn as her and as smart as Sami, and he grows up in every indy promotion in two countries. When Sami signs with WWE, they ask her once and only once, if she’d consider doing the girlfriend-and-mom appearances and video thing.

She gets the distinct privilege of telling Triple H to go to hell - she’s not Sami’s trophy girl, Danny is not going to be used as a babyface prop. Hunter laughs and tells her he loved her PWG ladder match with Candice, and if she ever wants to join the company, to give him a call.

It’s hard, sometimes, because she wants to be there for Sami's debut (and for Tyler’s debut and for Jimmy’s debut), all of his moments, and it wouldn’t be worth the uproar if she showed her face in WWE. Sami wants to be there for her big matches, her title defenses, but unless he wants to be fired just as quickly, he can’t be near any indy promotions. They make it work as much as they can, sneak each other backstage or into hotel rooms, spend nights FaceTiming.

Two years after Sami’s debut, Kirsten gets a call from Hunter - Sami’s going to be world champion, he’s going to win the belt at Money in the Bank. She can’t miss this one, fuck the optics, she’s going to be front row, she and Danny and Sami’s family and Eric and Brigitte and her parents. Because she likes messing with him, she's kind of a dick about it to Sami, swearing up and down she can’t be there, she’ll be watching from the back the way she always does. She’s proud, of course she’s proud, but she just can’t be out there, it’ll destroy all their hard work at keeping kayfabe and keeping their relationship private. He says he understands, but she knows he’s disappointed.

The match is good - well, the Sami and Claudio and Roman and Sheamus parts are good, the rest is a clusterfuck involving Cena busting Orton’s head open and Bray fucking up a chokeslam from Kane - and while Sami had clocked the family in the row just off the Spanish announce table, he hadn’t seen her, even when he was on said table. So when he’s hanging from the belt, a good twenty feet up, and Roman’s setting up for a midair spear, she’s screaming along with the rest of the crowd. Kane picks Roman off, then he and Orton go tumbling out of the ring, and Sami unhooks the belt to the biggest pop she’s ever heard.

The locker room comes running out - oh, she hadn’t expected it, but it’s a fucking sweet gesture, he deserves it - and while Sami’s still staring at the title in sheer disbelief, Claudio and Tyler (Seth now, but he’ll always be Tyler to her) approach the barricade.

“C’mon, Kir, if there were any time to obliterate kayfabe, it’s now,” Tyler says, holding out a hand.

Claudio and Tyler pick her up, depositing her on the opposite side of the barrier. She has that same feeling she had the night of Final Battle, of wanting to be in front of the crowd, not feeling like herself, and now she’s going up the ring steps. She’s touching a WWE ring, Sami’s got the world heavyweight championship around his waist, and half the former indy scene is carrying him on their shoulders.

The crowd gets louder, seeing her, anyone who’s seen her PWG or Defy or Shimmer work cheering in excitement. Mox and Reigns set Sami down as she ducks under the ropes, his mouth forming _what the fuck oh my god_ as she beelines for him. And then she’s in his arms, getting his sweat all over her InZayn shirt, crying her eyes out against his shoulder.

“You did it, you’re the fucking champion, you’re going to be the best-”

“I’m gonna lose it to Brock in three months-”

“Fuck that shit, you’re amazing, it doesn’t matter, I’m so proud of you-”

The heavy leather and gold and diamond belt presses against her waist, something she’ll never have herself. It doesn’t matter.

“I didn’t think you’d be here-”

“Of course I am, _mon soleil_ , why the fuck wouldn’t I be?”

He curls fingers in her hair, kisses her to the affectionate heckling of Tyler and Claudio and Cody and all the guys. Rests his forehead against hers and says “this is ours, you did this as much as I did”.

That acknowledgment gets her through the absolute shitstorm of fans, photographers, journalists, and psychos who follow her around and show up at indy shows to harass her about being Sami Zayn’s girlfriend. She has to take out a few restraining orders when some dirt sheet assholes get a little too curious about Danny, and the legal shit goes on for months. There’s even a chant, and though she heckles and spits and yells back, it still stings to have “Sami’s side piece” chanted at her during every match.

So she leans into it, gets a tee-shirt made that says “I’m banging the WWE champion” and wears it for all four nights of BOLA. Beats Io Shirai in that shirt. Then, sales of the shirt go through the roof when the Bella twins post a photo of them wearing the shirts on their Instagram, and Nikki Bella gets her number from Bryan to talk merch deals.

The Bella twins are actually pretty cool, it turns out. Even if they have terrible taste in men.

Having some of the biggest merch movers in the company on their side - plus Bryan, plus Tyler (and Mox and Reigns, they’re a package deal) - is what helps Sami not get fired for returning the favor at All In. He’s a proven main-event talent, but Vince has banned all employees from so much as mentioning the show ever since the 30-minute sellout. Sami’s supposed to have been in line for an Intercontinental reign, it’d be all he needs for the Grand Slam, but he makes a deal with Vince: he gets to see Kirsten at All In, forfeits the IC belt and working with anyone of his choice for at least a year.

She doesn’t actually know any of this, busy planning spots with Eddie (an intergender ladder match, they’re going to steal the entire damn show), letting Dana and Brandi talk her into new gear and an entrance coat.

(The coat is fucking great, blood-red floor length leather, studs matching her boots and belt. She feels like a total rockstar, and even Ibushi had given her the thumbs-up.)

Her entrance music plays, the Allstate Center goes insane, and she’s halfway down the ramp when she sees Sami at the corner of the barricade, Danny jumping up and down beside him. Inwardly, she feels like she has little cartoon hearts and birdies flying around her, outwardly, she plays it very cool, sauntering down the ramp and approaching the barrier.

“Vince is gonna murder you,” she says, grinning.

“Don’t care,” he says, and he’s even wearing a Kill Steen Kill shirt (with zero plausible deniability now that he’s on camera). “Fucking kill it tonight, baby.”

“All night every night.” She kisses Danny on the forehead before accepting a fistbump and a _get him, mama_. Takes off her ring (she was going to put it in the pocket of the coat, but this is better), and places it in his hand. “Keep this for me?”

“ _Toujours, cherie,_ ” Sami says, tapping his chest. Yeah, he looks awesome in her merch. “Only three ladder bumps, right?”

Sure, they’ll go with that. He can yell later, after the two scoop slams, suicide moonsault, the stacked ladders, the reversed package piledriver, and fireman’s carry facebuster, when they get to the hotel. Married makeup sex is way, way better than dating makeup sex.

Yes, they ended up getting married. The wedding - none of which she planned - was a surprise trip to Disneyland Paris, just for the two of them and Danny. Kirsten refuses to confirm any of the questions she gets (date, location, dress, Montreal reception, who proposed), but it happened.

She keeps her own name, though - she worked way too hard for it.

**Author's Note:**

> habibti - beloved (f)  
> depanneur - convenience store in Quebec  
> ma belle-soeur - sister-in-law  
> osti de tabarnak de crissment de marde - fucking son of a bitch piece of shit (Quebecois, loosely)  
> maman - mother  
> je m’en fous - I don’t give a fuck  
> a plus - see you later  
> cheri - darling (m)  
> tu captes- do you understand?  
> mon soleil - my sunshine  
> toujours, cherie - always, darling


End file.
